


I'll Take "Fruit Desserts" for 200 Credits, Please

by handschuhmaus



Series: Rogues and Ramblers: Tales from the World(s) of Star Wars Rebels [7]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Cumberlayne is the victim of both hiccups and a minor knee injury, Gen, Pre-Series, author also will not vouch for absolute accuracy in defining obscure American fruit desserts, author not responsible for events should you read this while eating due to, do not read while eating, farming themed idioms as a trivia category, hiccup remedies contained within have not been tried and are not endorsed by the author, horrible institutional food descriptions, let's subject Kallus to the minor humiliation of falling sound asleep, may induce yawning, some interaction could be interpreted as pre-Aresko/Grint if you are so inclined, this will make less sense if you know nothing about the game show Jeopardy, unintentional Hardy Boys reference when I was actually aiming for BTTF2, you can picture Rudor looking like Tendo Choi with loads of coffee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-25 14:55:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3814648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/handschuhmaus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(<em>or</em>, "What is--Agent Kallus's maternal uncle's berry shortcake?")</p>
<p>The new liaison Minister Tua institutes a trivia night, by request of the governor, as a "team building exercise". Also, there might just be a rebel plot playing out in the officer's dining hall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ...are you yawning at your superior officer?

**Author's Note:**

> Several headcanons from other people on tumblr have inspired bits and pieces in this story, largely ones belonging to [pileofsith](http://pileofsith.tumblr.com) and [my-robot-prince](http://my-robot-prince.tumblr.com). Also, [this post](http://lothal-imperials.tumblr.com/post/112188508391) inspired the peppermints.
> 
> As usual, unbetaed.

"I don't even believe that's a food," Valen Rudor pronounced on his way to the caff machine, despite no one having solicited his opinion on the question.

"Well, it  _is,_ " Grint insisted, scrawling yet another line on the sheet of flimsi beside his lunch tray. His colleague Commandant Aresko was looking on with a mixture of emotions that almost certainly included the following: curiosity despite himself at the contents of Myles's list; a certain entertainment value verging on schadenfreude from what he expected to be the humiliation of ignorance; and, lastly, but in no way the least of his reasons, disgust at the tray of food in front of him. Aresko had grown up eating institutional food and was reputed to eat anything with apparent lack of disgust, from lumpy and obviously artificial custard to formless once-vegetables with the green (or indeed any other color) boiled entirely out of them, but the current cooking staff had managed the curious feat of turning utterly innocent ingredients into A, a tasteless and unidentifiable mush which nevertheless verged on inedibly salty; B, "vegetable soup" resembling nothing so much as dishwater; and C, what appeared to be candied red fruit but tasted improbably of cinnamon liqueur and ammonium salted licorice. Indeed, even Grint, despite having a taste for the stuff (the licorice, that is), had rejected the probably-fruit as disgusting.

"No, you  _can't_  call some weird dessert of some kind a 'brown betty.' What kind of a name is that?" Rudor insisted, as he came precariously close to dumping both the mugs he was trying to carry back to Agent Kallus's office on the floor.

"Baron," Lyste stuck his head through the breakroom doorway to pronounce listlessly, "Agent Kallus suggests you return to his office promptly."

Rudor sighed and shook his head, yet ceased his commentary and followed the supplymaster out. What Lyste had to do with the dismal food no one had ventured to say, though the kinder among them had tactfully emphasized the (decent) quality of produce  _coming in._  


Aresko extracted a bag of fragmented and non-regulation peppermints from his trouser pocked and inserted a half into his mouth (pointedly ignoring the tray) before asking snippishly, "Why do you know all this, anyway?" 

"I know plenty of stuff you don't know," Grint protested, making an excessively theatrical show of his wounded pride. "We'll just see who's gloating after Minister Tua's little  exercise."

"Yes, hardly seems  _fair_ , does it?" Cumberlayne protested with an air of world-weariness, scratching his nose. The context for this conversation being that their new local liaison, while a handsome and seemingly capable woman, was, under direction from Governor Pryce, instituting a trivia contest, ostensibly as a "team-building exercise." Myles Grint, upon hearing this news, had set to writing a list of ideas for a trivia category he was going to promote. Specifically, he was hoping for a category called "fruit desserts," which, doubtless to the disappointment of some of the cadets, if they were even in on this, was exactly what it sounded like, except without any actually sugars, flour, or flaky crust, or even the tiniest of raisins. Just as Rudor arrived, he had read aloud one line proudly.

"Here, do you even know this one? 'A cold-climate native, this very sour stalk is sometimes known as pie-plant." Grint read.

"That's not a  _dessert_ ," Aresko commented, pointedly neglecting to provide an answer. "And it's not even a  _fruit_ , either. It's a  _stalk_." 

"Hmph," Myles grunted peevishly. "And yet you ate my qunce crumble when I brought it in."

"Is that what that was?" Cumberlayne spat back haughtily. "You know perfectly well I'll eat anything," as if this was, implausibly, a point of pride. "What  _is_  a 'qunce', anyway?"

"It's a sort of fruit," Grint informed him automatically, growing frustrated. 

With an air of superiority, Aresko answered, "I should think, or at the least hope, that was obvious. Otherwise it wouldn't qualify."

"No, you won't," was Myles's belated comeback, as he indicated Aresko's mostly untouched lunch tray. "And I haven't put it on the list anyway, so--you don't need to say it has to be," he finished lamely.

The commandant suddenly smiled smugly, even as a piece of peppermint went down his throat prematurely and caused him to cough. "I think," he said when he had stopped coughing, "you've said more today than you had in the past week. Maybe we  _should_  carry on with the trivia questions , if it can get this much of a rise out of you." He finished his triumphant speech with an undignified and apparently quite uncomfortable hiccup, which was immediately succeeded by another.

Eyeing him irritably, Grint yawned luxuriantly and apparently intentionally.

"Taskmaster Grint," Minister Tua said warily, having re-entered the room unnoticed, "Are you  _yawning_  at your superior officer?" 

"My granny always advocated it as a cure for the hiccups," Myles explained, directing it at said superior officer, as Aresko hiccuped again. Additionally, no sooner had she finished speaking than Minister Tua herself yawned. "She also made an excellent fickerfee crumble."

"What -hic- is a fickerfee? -hic-" Cumberlayne muttered.

Grint then took notice of the Minister's presence. "Minister!" he said with frankly unusual enthusiasm and candor. "I put together a list of trivia for your contest--fruit desserts."

Maketh uttered a surprised and slightly befuddled "Oh," primly. She then recalled herself (and a relevant incident), and responded, "Yes, like your jogan grunt--I had some at the dinner. It was--" she looked crossly at their food-loaded trays "--superior to anything the staff canteen at this base seems capable of producing." Aresko hiccuped loudly, interrupting her.

"However, while the topic is a neutral enough one, I cannot admit you as a contestant in a contest to which you've contributed questions; it would be unfair," she pronounced thoughtfully.

"That's what I -hic- said," Aresko reminded him with a note of unsettling glee in his voice. 

"Which is why I'm volunteering Commandant Aresko as a participant, Minister," Grint contributed in an idealistic tone straight out of the recruitment holos. "You can't have  _that_  many contestants anyway, if you're going off the show. I can try to answer something next time. If there is one." 

"Taskmaster Grint," Aresko confronted him in a pompous but not quite entirely serious voice, (likely to distract from his own puzzling glee of the previous moment) and, with monumental effort,  _without_  punctuating the statement with any hiccups, "are you trying to  _flirt_  with the Minister?"

Grint paled and his teasing mood immediately deflated, even if this was not what the now hiccuping Aresko had intended. "No, Sir!" he quietly barked, continuing in the theme of picture-perfect enthusiastic officer (contrasting with the boredom twenty minutes ago that had led him to make the trivia list in the first place). "I have several younger sisters at home, sir, and I am used to joking with them."

No one responded to this promptly, because Lyste, likely the subject of Aresko's smirking glee, entered the room with a half-empty caff mug, looking quite as if he had spat the hot stuff all over himself and with the mood to match. Aresko's hiccup was loud in the sudden quiet. "Cadet," Lyste said by way of explanation, "thought it would be funny to dilute the allergenic creamer with paint thinner, of all things," and stalked out with a fresh mugful.

"No," the minister confided thoughtfully after he'd left, "the dehydrate had gone off, somehow, and they thickened whatever they requisitioned as a substitute--which I'm not sure  _is_ dairy-free, with tree sap they somehow managed to purchase at cut-rate prices. I'm staying far away from it."

"Well," Aresko remarked resignedly, "so -hic- am I,  _now."_  


"You don't have a dairy allergy." Grint pointed out.

"No? You should try my mellorun ice cream sometime, then," Minister Tua remarked, seemingly quite forgetting herself. " _Are_ you going to participated, Commandant?"

"If I  _must_ ," he said, re-closing his peppermints and then hiccuping.

"I recommend drinking a large glass of very cold water and spinning around five times, Commandant. Well,  _if_ you can do so with some measure of dignity," Minister Tua advised as she left the room.


	2. --I do not know why all these disorderly elements determine to promote chaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trivia contest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part got really long. o.O
> 
> The third chapter will merely be a small scene regarding the rebel plot aspect.
> 
> Again with the headcanons.

The evening of the next day saw the local officers gathered in the so-called "party room" of a nearby drinking establishment, although the buffet table of drinks was actually laden solely with the soft variety. Commandant Aresko, Supply Master Lyste, and Baron Rudor had been placed at three stools positioned in the center of the floor, and given small buzzers. Minister Tua sat behind a "judge's table", reserving the seat beside her for Agent Kallus. As for Grint, he was standing, mingling with the scant rest of the attendees, while drinking a Red Giant cola and awaiting the debut of his trivia questions. Agent Kallus was late.

Aresko got up and went over to the buffet table. After surveying it unsuccessfully for any sign of even the most dismal snack, he walked over to Minister Tua. "Where _did_ you learn about the creamer?"

She turned a businesslike smile on him and put down her stylus. "Auditing the supply accounts, actually. Despite all appearances, the ingredients going into those kitchens are rather costly."

Aresko nodded then wheedled, "Is there _any_ hope of food at this thing?"

Tua looked at him pointedly. " _Naturally_ , I declined the offers of the base canteen to cater the event. Wouldn't you, Commandant?"

Sighing, he meandered back to his assigned stool without answering. he looked as if he hadn't gotten much sleep the previous night.

Agent Kallus finally walked in, still wearing his helmet and carrying his own mug of beer, which he had paid for in his own money, in an effort to show willing to adopt informality for the night.

"Kallus," Tua greeted him, smirking challenge in her voice, "you're the quizmaster tonight. Why don't you take off your helmet, so everyone can admire your sideburns?" He grudgingly complied and sat down, setting both helmet and mug on the table (separating the latter from Tua's) Standing, the minister informed the room at large, "The trivia contest starts in five minutes."

"Why do I have to announce this thing?" Kallus muttered to no one and attempted, quite sedately, to take a small drink from his mug. It was still fizzing vigorously, and one of the bubbles wended its way into his nose, making him splutter and then cough. He sat the mug down heavily, slopping a bit of liquid over the brim onto the flimsi Tua had prepared for him.

"Agent," she confronted him sweetly, all the while ignoring her own mug, "don't you think you'd better stick with plain water?"

It took a moment for Kallus to answer; he was already absorbed in examining the flimsi even as he used a disintegrating layer of fiber napkin to blot away the spill. When he did, he sighed and said reluctantly, "I suppose, if you think it best."

The low level of chatter among the milling officers was punctuated by Rudor sneezing, repeatedly. Oddly, no one wished him health, as was the custom.

In the aftermath of this interruption, Kallus flung the flimsi down on the table and quietly confronted Tua. "Do you not remember what I told you?"

Maketh was abruptly all sobriety and answered, "My apologies, Agent. It was not my intention to so badly humiliate you."

"Good," he muttered sotto voce, "because I can't read this aloud right now without making a fool of myself."

Captain Calunet, a tall woman known to her stormtrooper corps mostly as "Scar" thanks to a prominent one on her face, had stepped up to the table intending to address Kalllus, but instead asked Tua concernedly but without tact, "Isn't Agent Kallus sober?"

"Perfectly," he answered coldly. "But I was not hired for my ability to read unfamiliar texts aloud fluently. It has been a long day. Do not try me." No one ventured to mention that Calunet had not technically been invited.

Tactfully, Maketh asked, "How is your unit progressing in the exercises?"

"Fine, fine," she answered, and stepped back away from the table. 

"Welcome to our trivia contest," Minister Tua chose that moment to announce. "Contestants, your category choices are: fruit desserts, shock-ball, military uniforms throughout the ages, gaseous planet weather phenomena, and farming idioms. Who would like to go first?"

Rudor raised a hand, half eager, half shy, and, when indicated requested "Farming idioms, please."

"To gather in feed grasses in clement weather," she announced. Kallus glanced around and noticed one of the TIE pilots grinning eagerly. He had never bothered to learn this particular individual's name, but his passion for word puzzles was common knowledge. It figured.

Rudor buzzed in only slightly before Lyste, and even Aresko belatedly raised a hand, forgetting to use the buzzer in his fluster. The baron answer, "What is making hay while the sunshine...shines? While the sun shines, I mean. Farming imple--idioms for...200 credits, please?" Clearly a fan of the holoshow, then, although they had no system to keep track of the supposed value of questions and they most certainly _weren't_ handing out credits.

Maketh supplied the question. "To acclimate to something like a waterfowl--" she bit off hastily and frowned. Lyste buzzed in. 

"What is a duck to water? Shockball."

Lyste proved to be an untapped well of shockball knowledge and exhausted the category in quick order, giving neither Rudor nor Aresko (though _he_ did not seem inclined to) a chance to answer. The pilot grew irritable. Having answered "Shockball for 2000," not that anyone was actually keeping score, with "What is a Biffed Hooper?", the Supplymaster reluctantly requested gaseous planet weather phenomena.

The first question, which Kallus would not have been able to transcribe, provoked no answers, and Maketh, frowning, finally allowed, "I'm not sure why I included these questions. Does anyone object to scratching that category?"

No one spoke up, but in the expectant silence one of the officers could be heard saying "And I asked him especially for trivia questions," with dismay. Maketh marked out the category with her pencil.

"Would you like to choose a category, Commandant?" she inquired.

"Another farming idioms," Aresko requested, a bit awkwardly.

The question proved to be "Applying a strategy to prevent disaster too late for it to be useful."

With his TIE pilot reflexes, Rudor was the first to ring in, a second before Aresko and Lyste both hit their buttons.

"What is locking the barn door after the horses are stolen? Fruit desserts for 100 credits, please," he announced, glaring sideways at Lyste for unclear reasons. Unless, perhaps, it was his slurping his thick and creamy smoothie.

"Sweetened fruit baked within a crust or between two."

Aresko buzzed in after a minute when no one else did, "That's an _easy_ question. What is pie? Fruit desserts for 200." He gave a little wave at Grint.

"That's it!" Baron Rudor exclaimed in frustration before Tua could offer the next question. "You're always drinking those and eating those sandwiches you make and you completely ignore - neglect, even, your responsibility for the supplies so the rest of us have to deal with the dreadful stuff the canteen has been serving up!"

The trivia was forgotten for the moment. "Is this so, Lyste?" Minister Tua asked, very sternly.

"Look, I'm on a diet," Lyste protested good-naturely. "I'm trying to bulk up, so I've been consuming extra protein-- _just_ protein and eating--watching what I eat." Tua got up and walked towards him.

"But you've ignored the canteen's food?" Calunet piped up.

"Well, Supplymaster Lyste, be that as it may, in failing to respond at all to the poor quality food being provided recently, you've neglected your duties. I realize you leave on factory inspection tomorrow, and I am willing to give you _a_ second chance, but in the future, you must not neglect this minor but vital duty. Agent Kallus, Commandant, do you have any objections to Captain Calunet's being given charge of the situation for the present?" The hierarchy, with different Imperial departments and the planetary government, was not completely clear, and a few might even argue that Tua was overstepping her authority, but this seemed sensible enough. No one _wanted_ more of the dismal food they had been trying to avoid eating for the past month.

"I'm sorry I didn't realize," Lyste said, without particular contrition. "I didn't think the food was that bad."

"You _dimwit_!" Rudor exclaimed incredulously. "I guess because you weren't eating it? Weren't even getting served it?" 

Aresko pursed his lips and glared silently at Lyste. He was not more thrilled than anyone else to be eating--or rather, not eating, the dreadful dishes that came out of the canteen. 

"Well, I did make sure they were supplied with wholesome produce," Lyste offered lamely.

"Perhaps," said the minister, a disapproving look coming to her face as if due to a thought she did not voice, "but it is also a minor but vital aspect of your post to ensure what is being served to officers falls within reasonable distance of quality--standards." 

She walked over to Aresko and quietly asked, "Commandant, have you noticed any activity which might suggest those supplies are being resold, possibly on the black market?"

Aresko, who now felt almost as if he was testifying, responded, "I have not, although the latter possibility would be considerably less obvious. I can only conjecture that the current staff is singularly untalented at cooking, however ,and turns out their disgusting fare from those ingredients. Have _your_ audits discovered a discrepancy in volume?"

"Only between the dining rubbish and expectations." Tua's lip curled.

"Minister, that's all well and fine, I guess," Kallus suddenly interjected, taking a drink of his beer against her earlier advice. "But we're _here_ for a 'trivia night,' and may I suggest that you change the format?"

"Who's winning, anyway?" Lyste asked, earning a glare from Rudor. 

"Who wants to give out the questions?" Kallus asked the room. 

Myles Grint, standing towards the back of the group, nominated his usual companion -- "Commandant Aresko!"

With a rueful smile, Aresko fetched the trivia sheet and demanded of the room, "Especially berries, baked beneath a sweet biscuit or cakelike topping."

No one volunteered an answer; they seemed to be wary of Tua or Kallus or both or possibly even Aresko.

"My uncle, my _maternal_ uncle's shortcake!" Kallus yelled out, not as if he had a particularly great expectation that it might be right.

"No, it's _cobbler_!" Rudor rejoined. "Come on, it's fruit trivia, it's not that hard!"

Tua, who still felt herself a bit of an outsider as the liaison, walked over to Calunet. "Did you know about the weather phenomenon?" the stormtrooper captain asked conversationally.

"I didn't know the _name_ , but I'd heard of it. Captain, by me you have the authority to dismiss those yahoos in the kitchen, seemingly incapable even of the most basic dishes as they are, but I can't swear that no one will hassle you about it."

"Farming idioms: while you can provide materials or bring them to the right place, you can't actually force livestock when they don't care to?" Aresko asked the room, receiving no reply.

"I can handle it, Minister. I'm glad, you know, that _this_ is the first time I've chosen to exercise my access to events open to officers. The military rations are better than what I've seen in the mess in the dining trash. Do you think it could be an act of rebellion, possibly?"

Maketh frowned. "I hadn't considered that yet. Not _here._ I--it _is_ the Rim, hardly a cultural center, but I did not expect rebellion to arise here... At least not in that form. There have been some treasonous broadcasts--perhaps _they_ are inciting antics..."

"You can bring a horse to water but you can't make them drink?" Grint finally suggested to answer. Lyste had gone a bit sulky and retreated to the corner, while Rudor seemed to be holding back in hopes of letting someone else answer, as long as Lyste wasn't.

"That's not in your job description, is it? You know, as long as that food wasn't actually _poisoned_ , I'd be in favor of lenience if it's rebels. Show 'em the Empire isn't out to get them like a lot of them think. A few weeks locked up, sure, but for bad cooking? _I_ wouldn't give an order to shoot them."

"Nor would I--I don't like violence," Tua remarked.

The captain chuckled. "I think you're in the wrong business then, minister."

Noticing that the crowd seemed largely unenthused, Aresko handed off the trivia sheet to Rudor, who was more given to whipping up enthusiasm. "A sweetened mixture of grain topping fruit. Come on, people!"

"Well, for certain incorrigibles, the death penalty does make sense, but--I do not know why all these disorderly elements determine to promote chaos in our Empire."

"A crisp!" one of the TIE pilots volunteered.

"I don't know either. I suppose they think they know better than us how to run the galaxy; I don't think they know how to run it at all. I'm quite _certain_ they don't know how to run an army--although, and minister, I hope you will not think me treasonous in saying so, I can't help feeling that a more accurate weapon would help the reputation of our own forces. It's not the targeting system--our blasters have a ridiculous kickback and I've only ever met one person--a being of uncommon proportions, capable of holding it steady. I'm relatively god with our standard heavy blaster but even so I can't hit with an accuracy better than a square -- I can't guarantee I'd hit a person I shot at--the size of their torso, from fifteen yards." Calunet gestured but of course did not draw her weapon.

Minister Tua sighed. "I'm afraid that 's very much not my department--I learned how to shoot a light blaster at the academy but I'm hardly a weapons buff. Well--except for old-fashioned swords, but those are for sport rather than remotely practical, and I am _strictly_ amateur with them. Nor have I any influence over weapons manufacture. If--" she said a bit sardonically, "you'd said something about TIEs, with Sienar right here, I might have been able to say something, but nor would I deceive you claiming that it would do any good. Economies of scale, I suppose, and there _are_ bureaucratic hurdles once anything is accepted as potentially standard. I don't like admitting that--in some ways I'm afraid _I_ am little more than a much glorified member of the bureaus, but even efforts at reform have to follow procedure--and--I fear I'm losing you-- paradoxically, reforming the reform procedure creates even more issues.than there were with the obsolete system. And, I don't devote all my time to that, either--as you know I'm the local liaison to the academy and the ISB, besides which... the Governor expects me to promote a certain level of civilization in our own little backwater, though I really am not sure her own suggestion of an officer's trivia night qualifies."

"Do you, uh, have much experience coming up with trivia questions?" Calunet, who, to her credit, had listened to the return rant attentively, suggesting her sympathy by nodding at appropriate points.

"No," Maketh said with a smile, "none whatsoever. Sometimes I have to adopt my father's maxim of muddling through."

"They're getting excited about something," the captain noted, tugging at the collar of her undress uniform and then examining the wrist communicator (which Maketh knew to be an experimental model) she wore. "I should be going. One of my younger boys just came back injured. I was hardly going to win at trivia, not that it looks like any prizes are going."

Tua winced. "Ah, yes, prizes. I forgot _something_ , I knew. Thank you for the conversation, captain, and please do attend to the kitchen staff." She was given a small salute, to which she was yet unaccustomed, and a nod of acknowledgement as Calunet left.

"A berry cake with surface texture and strusel topping; a fastener or to crumple under pressure," Rudor asked.

A devious half-smile had shown upon Aresko's face. "Buckle!" he exclaimed triumphantly. Grint looked at him questioningly.

"And with that we exhaust the questions listed in the 'fruit desserts' category," Rudor pronounced. "I still don't know if some of these are even exitant--existent." 

"Yes they _are_." Grint assured him. "Commandant, what _are_ you doing? Why are you trying to answer all the questions I contributed?" 

"Oh." Cumberlayne said, abruptly less enthusiastic. "I was trying too hard, wasn't I?" 

"Too hard to what?" Myles asked confusedly.

"I--I was trying to impress you, I guess." Aresko admitted and promptly looked extremely embarrassed. Fortunately for his ego, the only third party paying any attention whatsoever to their conversation was Rudor, who did not appear particularly concerned, and, in fact, was looking at whatever Lyste was doing at the buffet table. Most of the trivia night attendees were talking amongst themselves; Kallus, incredibly, appeared to have fallen asleep, and Tua was not presently involved in a conversation. Instead she was observing teh officers as they mingled.

"Impress _me_?" Myles inquired, "You're _my_ superior; why should you want to do _that_?"

Aresko sighed. "I looked it all up at lunch today. I'm sure it was a ridiculous notion..." he trailed off into a melancholic mood.

Any further discussion was derailed by Valen's confronting Lyste yet again, although he seemed less angry than before. "Are your protein supplements even working?" the pilot demanded.

"Why's it any of your business--you don't even _like_ me, Rudor. Baron. Whatever," Lyste answered him irritably.

"Well, I don't think you're using the right dosage--I read the dosing instructions and I think you're using a lot less than you're supposed to." the pilot informed him with no anger but more enthusiasm than was strictly warranted.

"Oh you did, did you? What gives you the right to look through my things?" Lyste demanded irately, and then looked cautiously around at Tua and Kallus, fearing they might have been alerted by his outburst. 

"I _didn't_ ," Valen protested candidly, chagrined. "I pitched in unloading some packages the other day and who doesn't read packages they're handling?"

_This_ remark _had_ caught Tua's attention and she muttered to no one in particular, "Remind me to reconsider before raising his security clearance or making use of him as a courier."

Lyste seemed lost for words. "You're trying to help me?" he finally asked. "You don't hate me?" 

"If I'm being perfectly honest, you're kind of an idiot about some things," Valen informed him, and, with a visible effort as suppression of his ego, "but I'm informed even I have my blind spots. Also your negligence with the canteen probably contributed to a regent digestive illness I underwent."

He paused for a moment thinking how to continue, enough for Arekso to roll his eyes and remark, as an aside toward Myles, "Yes, and the liquor in that drink didn't contribute at all. And he forgot to check the--unplugged the cleaning droid he charged with cleaning up _from the charging station."_

"But we're both serving the Empire, and I've not seen you being _malicious_ towards your comrades-in-arms," Rudor finished, and extended his hand to the supplymaster, who awkwardly shook it after staring at it for a minute. 

"Now that's resolved..." one of the other pilots commented, " Say, Lyste, old mate, what kind of routine are you doing?" 

Lyste, warily, walked off with his drink, surrounded by a loose knot of pilots, and Rudor, after searching the faces of Aresko and Grint, belatedly scampered after them towards the corner. 

"So, what kind of fruits do you like?" Myles asked timidly, leaving aside the awkward question of the Commandant's trying to impress him. The topic had proved a decent conversation before... 

"Uh, nothing in particular--that is, any kind, really," Cumberlayne responded, taken aback. 

Minister Tua came over to them, eyeing the dozing (and periodically snoring) Agent Kallus as she walked, "It's about time we wrapped up the night, gentlemen," she announced. Less formally, if you could call it that, she asked, "I suppose it would be entirely against regulation to call up and commandeer an imperial transport for the purpose of getting Agent Sleepyhead over there home?" 

"Yes," Aresko affirmed mildly. "But who cares?" 

"I'll just be doing that, then. Thank you for attending, gentlemen, and for participating--I hope your enthusiasm will contribute to future team-building exercises." She nodded and headed over to Kallus. 

By an unvoiced consensus, the pair started off towards the door, only for Grint to pitch backward as he planted one foot on the flimsi Rudor had thoughtlessly dropped instead of properly discarded, which slid. Aresko caught his arm. 

"Would you like me to walk you home, Taskmaster?" he suggested awkwardly, but with apparent concern. 

"No, I'm fine--" Myles said, his mouth on autopilot, and then worried about how to address this solicitation, finally settling for "That mode of... aid is usually reserved for one's girlfriend." Or _boyfriend_ , his brain supplied. Was... Cumberlayne interested in him? He had not considered the possibility before, both of course because of fraternization regulations and also thanks to being reasonably sure there was a woman living in Aresko's rented house. He himself was corresponding with a couple of girls he had known in high school (yes, both knew about the other) and had assumed that marriage would somehow ultimately pan out between somebody there. 

"Oh," Arekso responded, taken aback. He surveyed Grint, assuring himself that his colleague was quite alright, and then walked on, as if away from an embarrassment. But this took him past the drinks table, and someone had dropped some ice. Down went the commandant, with a thump that roused Tua's attention from her efforts to wrestle an only half-awake Kallus away from the table. 

"Are you alright?" Myles asked, coming to his aid regardless of the immediately previous awkwardness. "You've--" there was blood on the floor. Not much but it _was_ blood. "cut yourself." 

"Who," Aresko demanded irately through gritted teeth, "leaves an --accursed _knife!_ on the _floor_?!" 

"Here, let me get you some first aid," Grint said, slipping into protective older brother mode instead of the proper tone he should have taken when a commanding officer was injured. 

"Yes--some ice, contained, would be helpful," Aresko responded, pulling up his trouser leg and looking ruefully at the inch long ragged (but shallow) cut on his knee. "Also something to staunch the bleeding and clean the area. To prevent infection." His voice was taut with the effort of concealing his pain. 

"I know my first aid," Myles grumbled. 

"You haven't taken the _course_ to assure me of that," was Arekso's acerbic retort as he examined the bloody rip in the fabric of his trousers. 

"Well, you learn it if you're oldest and your parents don't have time for kissing every scrape," Grint retorted. He had still fetched his colleague a bag of ice, an antiseptic wipe, and a bacta strip bandage; and now he wiped the wound, pausing to place the knife back up on the table, positioning it where it wouldn't fall. 

"They're Lasat! Shoot them!" Kallus called blearily, which _did_ make everyone look up to verify their ears' testimony that no one had recently entered the room, Lasat or otherwise. 

"You're _dreaming_ ," Tua elbowed him. "No, not you CY129," she said into her comm. 

Kallus blinked, yawned, and tried to stretch without removing himself from the minister, but dozed again after offering "Did you win, Aresko?" 

"Yes, _very_ shortly," the Minister finished her comm-call. Of Kallus she remarked, "Sleep deprivation, I believe. Regrettable and irresponsible." 

Aresko sighed and made an undignified scramble to his feet as soon as Grint had ensured the bandage adhered, clutching the ice it was difficult to apply while standing. "Likely so, minister," he remarked. 

"--Yes, of course I'll show you!" Rudor was now exclaiming, practically dragging Lyste towards the door. He seemed to resent his fellow pilots buddying up to the supplymaster when he himself was excluded. "You have to know, if your computer should fail or something--" he tapped his nose and slapped his shoulder, a pilot superstition to ward off the terrible possibility after having mentioned it, "to be able to navigate.16 Not hyperspace, of course, but it's helped me a time or two. Knowing the stars isn't useless!" 

"Okay," Lyste said, nowhere near so enthusiastically, and allowed himself to be dragged towards the door, followed by the knot of pilots. 

Tua, supporting Kallus, made to follow them. 

"Oh, alright, I think I'd better walk with you--I mean, unless you need to follow the minister's lead and take imperial taxi?" Myles relented. "You're already injured." 

"Yes, I know," Aresko agreed cryptically, and gave him a half-shrug before stepping forward, limping slightly due to his knee. 

By rights, the motley procession of imperials--the excited pilots, the dozy agent, the limping commandant--should have attracted the attention of the other, civilian, patrons, as they made their way through the main room, but fortunately there were only a few customers. An elderly couple seated along the wall glanced their way before tearing their last piece of pretzel apart, and the taciturn farmer at the bar merely nodded at them. The old woman who was making something in the corner stopped working, but only to examine what she'd done. 

The cool night air little diminished the pilots' enthusiasm and failed to rouse their sleeping ISB agent, but it did feel refreshing for Myles, Maketh, and Cumberlayne. 

Lyste and Rudor had led their companions away toward the edge of town, so Maketh turned only to the pair of officers to offer, "Good night," when the speeder arrived. 

Aresko motioned for his subordinate to hold the door open, which Myles moved to do with slight resentment, but it proved pointless, for Tua shoved Kallus into the back compartment door the driver had opened and then, contravening transport regulations, clamored onto the back bed. "I want some fresh air," she explained briefly. 

"Let's go home ourselves," Aresko suggested, and the two set off walking slowly (to accommodate his injury) toward their dwellings. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...yeah, um, I don't know much about weapons and what little I've picked up reading is pretty inapplicable because it pertains either to pseudo-medieval fantasy or to Star _Trek_. ;) I think I picked up the theory somewhere on tumblr, but I definitely fudged the terminology--please excuse it even if it is grossly inaccurate.
> 
> And you're certainly right if you think this rambled on and on. 
> 
>  
> 
> ~~May the 4th be with you... ;)~~


	3. I had not realized they would be so bold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and they were left wondering just how far rebels had managed to infiltrate their base...

"Maketh," Kallus cornered her the next morning with some urgency, "did you have any papers on you last night?"

"Er--I think I had one of the audit forms. Nothing that important," she recollected, stepping back from his intense confrontation and taking a sip of her latte.

"CY129, right?" he asked, glancing at the caff machine.

"Yes, I believe that was his number. Why are you trying to intimidate me, Agent? You got home perfectly safely." Maketh said coolly.

"That's not a valid ID number," he explained. She paled. "Do you still have the paper?"

With forced calm, Maketh led him on a sedate walk to her office and checked the slim satchel she sometime used to convey papers and had been wearing yesterday. It was empty.

"Agent, I'll _swear_ the form was entirely blank. At most it might have had a page number. They can learn very little from it, and protocol does not even demand destruction of that form when they are discarded--" They _had_ to presume it was rebels.

"Oh, it's not that aspect of the security breech that concerns me," he said nastily, but scaled back on his tone. "Even though they had the _ability to impersonate_ imperial personnel and borrow an imperial vehicle. I also found _this_ in the kitchen this morning." he held up a small card emblazoned with an unfamiliar symbol and the motto _Live in freedom, friends, destroy tyranny._

"They're among us," Maketh declared in an awestruck whisper.

"Yes, probably spitting--or worse--in our food deliveries."

"That's your department, Agent," she said thoughtfully. "I had not realized they would be so bold."

"Of course they are. We _must_ tighten security." Kallus pronounced in a clipped voice.

Maketh got in a closing jab: "I only hope your men are equal to the task."

"I will make sure they are, Minister, I will make sure they are."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not really sure why this story took over my head today...


End file.
